starlight in her wake
by seeingstardust
Summary: Ten minutes ago Kitty Mason was having a small crisis in her college dorm room in the United States. Now she's on a train with a bunch of Brits, a weird electric floating tentacle creature, and a woman who just fell through the roof and somehow looks no worse for wear. So. That's fun. (13/OC)


It was nearly four in the morning and I was walking a fine line between wanting to tear my hair out screaming and wanting to give up on life in favor of sleeping for the next ten thousand years. Assignment deadlines loomed over me everywhere I looked, but nothing was getting done; I couldn't even bring myself to get started. I had procrastinated and avoided for hours and days and now I was too exhausted to think about work, but too jittery with panic to just go to bed and leave it for the morning. I wished more than once that I could simply stop existing. At least until the end of the year. Then I'd be fine.

(Or so I hoped, anyway.)

With a harsh sigh, I tipped backwards in my chair and stared at the little glow-in-the-dark stars dotted across the ceiling of my dorm room. They'd already been there when I moved in at the start of the semester, leftover from a past resident, but I'd fallen in love with the way they looked and often traced over their patterns on the nights when I couldn't seem to sleep. The vastness and beauty of space was fascinating to me, even if I didn't have much of a head for the science behind it. I would think about how I was so small in such a massive universe, and somehow that would comfort me, rather than hurt. The things that seemed life-ending could suddenly feel like no big deal that way, at least for a little while.

Just like all those other restless nights, I found my eyes wandering across the little imitation constellations. I leaned back further to see more and more, caught up in the swirling glow, my wandering thoughts—only to yelp out a curse when my chair tipped back too far and crashed over, taking me along with it.

"God, I'm so fucking stupid," I groaned, scrunching my eyes shut. My head was starting to pound thanks to the jarring fall, and that was the only reason I hadn't started banging it against the floor myself from frustration. The self-loathing welled up inside me again as all the things I was trying not to think about came streaming back. I balled my hands into fists, digging my nails into the meat of my palms. "Fucking _idiot_. Christ on a bike."

I wanted to scream into my elbow or something, but the walls of the building were too thin for that, especially at going four AM. I twisted around so that I wasn't lying on my back anymore and sat back against the wall. When would everything stop being so much? I wanted so badly to disappear, to be anywhere but where I was. Anyone but who I was, this pathetic, useless girl who didn't belong here or anywhere and didn't deserve all the chances she'd been given.

Something glinted in the corner of my eye. I scrubbed the unshed tears away, thinking it wasn't really there, but whatever it was glinted again. Turning towards it, I saw that it was a package I'd picked up earlier in the semester, the one with no return address. No one I talked to laid claim to being the sender, and the note inside the cardboard, placed on top of a smaller box wrapped in a magnificent galaxy themed paper—'_Open when you need to get away'_—held no signature. When I'd taken the wrapped box out and turned it around to inspect it, and open it right away despite the instructions, there had been another note taped to the bottom reading '_Not now. Only when you can't take it anymore. You'll know._'

A little freaked out, the package had been shoved under my bed for worrying about at a later date. In the ensuing disaster that I'd become it had nearly been forgotten entirely.

Now there it was, back at the forefront of my mind, highlighted in a streak of light peeking through my blinds. The parts of the box still in shadow were motionless, but the parts bathed in moonlight were twinkling and moving like a real galaxy. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had finally gone delusional from lack of sleep. A shooting star crossed the two sides angled towards me, then disappeared around the corner of the box.

I swiveled onto my knees and reached out to drag to box closer. The patches of movement in the wrapping paper shifted with the change in its contact with the moonlight. It was completely amazing, though I didn't understand how it could be possible. There was no screen, no lights beneath the wrapping to create this realistic effect, just paper and box. No matter how I twisted and turned it, the moving galaxy continued to baffle me.

Then I caught sight of the taped note again. My hands started shaking as I brushed my fingers over the messily scrawled words. '_You'll know_.' I didn't know if I knew that this was the right moment, not really, but still I thought, _I can't. I __**can't**__ take this anymore_. No matter what was actually inside of this strange, wonderful box, whether it was dangerous or not, I was going to find out now, because I couldn't bear the way things were. Something needed to change, and the notes seemed to promise that. For once, I would ignore the whispers of my anxiety and put my trust in this mysterious sender and their gift.

Slowly, carefully, I unwrapped the box and set the paper aside. The box itself was a deep blue color, like the evening sky just before full dark. I held my breath while pulling off the lid.

Let it out in a gust, eyes wide.

Resting over another handwritten note, this one folded in the center, was the most gorgeous necklace I'd ever seen. The pendant was a silver crescent moon curving around a small glass ball, and suspended within the clear glass was what looked like—but couldn't possibly be—a miniature star. It winked and glimmered like one, though, throwing a soft light over my skin, and even felt warm to the touch. I cupped the necklace in my hands reverently, turning it this way and that to inspect every angle. It was like something out of a dream. I couldn't help thinking that this wasn't truly meant for me.

Except when I glanced down at the third note, the one the necklace had been laid out on, the outside of it read, '_Yes, it's truly meant for you_.'

My breath hitched. "No way," I whispered. Reluctant to set the necklace down, but needing to take a closer look at the card, I pulled the long, hookless chain over my head. At first it hung down to my navel, but as soon as I observed that it _changed_ somehow, the length shortening until the pendant rested just below my collarbones, close to my suddenly pounding heart. When I felt around the chain again with scrabbling fingers, there was nothing to indicate that it had ever been longer than this. "Oh my _god_."

Trying not to panic, I hastily unfolded the note, hoping to find some explanation that would make sense. On one side, was a message in one handwriting, the one from all the other notes.

'_Be brave._

_Be kind._

_Live._

_You are going to be amazing_.'

On the other side, the handwriting was very different, messy and loopy in a familiar way. A way that I recognized intimately, because it was my own handwriting.

'_You'll want to grab your phone. Maybe a jacket for good measure._'

I stared blankly at the message that I couldn't have possibly written. It could have been a forgery, sure, but it still didn't make sense. I was, I was nobody. Not rich, not well known, not special in any way. There was no conceivable reason or explanation for _any_ of this, the mystery or the gift or the notes themselves, especially not all together. Not with me as the recipient.

I turned to the back of the card, hoping for anything. Any kind of clue that I could use to figure it out.

'_Phone. Now.'_

Still in my handwriting and underlined very harshly. Something told me to listen, so I scrambled up to grab my phone off of the desk just in time for the world to go very, very bright.

When the light faded out of my vision, I was somewhere else altogether.


End file.
